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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691269">Growing up Human</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/clottedcreamfudge/pseuds/clottedcreamfudge'>clottedcreamfudge</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>There's no 'I' in 'Team Baby' [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stargate SG-1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Baby Acquisition, Aliens, Background Relationships, Coffee instead of sleep, Everybody Lives, F/M, Family, Family Dynamics, Family Feels, Happily Ever After, Raising a baby</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:08:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691269</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/clottedcreamfudge/pseuds/clottedcreamfudge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Having a Team Baby kind of changes everything. Obviously.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>There's no 'I' in 'Team Baby' [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Growing up Human</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Having a Team Baby kind of changes everything. Obviously. Hammond gives SG-1 leave to take care of the kid, but nobody really mentions how long that leave is likely to <em> be.</em> Children, as a general rule, take a while to be fully independent (unless nanites are involved), and it’s unlikely to be a ‘<em>wham bam thank you ma’am</em>’ kind of mission (thank you, Jack).</p><p>But they take it. What else can they do? They’re already invested and, as Teal’c rightly points out, they have destroyed a great many of the System Lords, and their ranks are 1/10th of what they once were, thanks to the work of the Tau’ri and the Free Jaffa.</p><p>“Perhaps,” he says one rainy Sunday afternoon, a sleeping Georgie cradled in the crook of one massive arm, “this is a sign of coming peace. To be blessed with a child when we have given so much of ourselves to this fight...” He pauses and looks down at Georgie, who looks milk white and tiny in comparison with the sheer mass of Teal’c’s dark frame. “I can think of no omen more promising.”</p><p>Daniel, who is on his 10th (“and <em> final</em>,” Sam had said before sloping off to bed) cup of coffee in 12 hours, looks up from the gargantuan book he’s reading on Ancient Mesopotamia.</p><p>“Something so small indicating a greater shift in the universe... It’s a comforting thought.” He smiles and closes his book. “Here, let me take her for a while – you haven’t gotten in a good Kelno’reem in a couple days. Sam may have cut off my caffeine supply, but this’ll see me through for a good while yet,” he says, indicating the steaming cup by his side. Teal’c inclines his head graciously and hands Georgie over with the greatest care, before heading to the spare room that Sam had immediately given over to him when they got off base. Daniel technically has a room, but he dozes off on the couch more often than not, letting Georgie sleep on his chest, lulled by his caffeine-quick heartbeat.</p><p>The sofa thing has almost caused some rifts.</p><p>
  <strong>*Day 1, One Week Earlier*</strong>
</p><p>“Carter, I swear to <em> God </em>I sleep like a baby on those things.” Sam is shaking her head, narrowing her eyes at her CO as Teal’c carries in item after item from the Colonel’s flatbed truck, arms loaded with everything from baby grows and stuffed toys to plastic plates and cutlery sets.</p><p>(They are all blue, at Sam’s insistence; her friends had had the good sense not to argue with her.)</p><p>“Sir, with all due respect, you are not bringing in a recliner just so that you can sleep out in the sitting room,” Sam says firmly. Daniel snorts as he goes to grab more stuff from the hallway and Jack throws a withering look at his retreating back.</p><p>“What, so Danny Boy is allowed to get a crick in his neck—” </p><p>“Don’t bring me into this,” Daniel says as he walks back into the room, his own arms full of bedding and a huge bag of what looks suspiciously like coffee beans. Jack throws his arms in the air.</p><p>“Fer cryin’ out loud – can’t a commanding officer sleep in his own Lay-Z Boy without being set upon by his subordinates? I think this is usually called a <em> mutiny</em>,” he says darkly, throwing a sideways glance at Daniel, who is completely ignoring him in favour of picking up Georgie from her little willow basket. He looks back at Sam, glowering, but he softens when he sees the genuine distress in her eyes.</p><p>“Sir... Jack,” she amends, in a quiet voice. Teal’c is helping Daniel sort out a bottle for a fussy Georgie, and just for a moment it feels so right to have her using his name. “I need you with me on this. We’re all in this together but – you and me? That’s...” She takes a steadying breath and runs a hand through short, slightly wild hair. “That’s <em> our kid</em>, regardless of how she came into this world. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I know we left a lot in that room-” Jack tries not to wince- “but I think we can suck it up for her sake.”</p><p>Jack throws a glance at where the kid – <em> his </em>kid – is now happily chugging down a warm bottle of formula, and his shoulders relax of their own accord. As usual, his Second in Command is right. He wonders briefly if she ever gets tired of it.</p><p>He picks up the duffel at his feet and hauls it over one shoulder.</p><p>“Alright, Carter,” he says softly. She raises an eyebrow and he rolls his eyes. “Sam.” She nods, the barest hint of a smile lifting one corner of her mouth. He smothers his own grin and marches past her to the main bedroom, where he will apparently be sleeping by her side in case of any night-time baby emergencies. Because they have a baby together now.</p><p>This is fine. Everything is going to be fine.</p><p>
  <strong>*Day 2*</strong>
</p><p>This morning, Jack is avoiding his unfairly attractive 2IC. He is doing so for completely valid reasons, and not because he’d woken up wound around her like some kind of sexual harassment octopus; no, no. He just thinks maybe she’d like some time alone with her daughter (<em>their </em>daughter), while she’s so placid and distinctly pleasant to be around. It won’t always be like that, Jack knows. There’s a lot of bodily fluids involved in child rearing. Tears and snot and everything else on God’s green earth; Sam should be allowed to enjoy the nicer parts of parenthood.</p><p>Like holding her burbling alien offspring while the father secretes himself away in the kitchen, trying not to get crumbs on the crossword he’s doing. As it stands, he is doing poorly all round.</p><p>“Two for two,” he murmurs to himself, reaching for a cup of coffee that he finds is no longer there. He looks up with a frown to see a vision he really isn’t ready for; Samantha Carter, soft sleep pants and cami still in place, their sleeping child cradled in one arm, and <em> his </em> cup of coffee in her other hand. The stolen coffee does nothing to temper the outrageously good look that bedhead seems to be on her. Just like every <em> other </em> look.</p><p>“Everything okay, s- Jack?” For some reason, the slip-up settles him and he manages to crack a fatigued smile.</p><p>“Just dandy, Sam.” He waves a hand at the coffee she’s holding. “I’ll give you a free pass this time, but if you do that to Daniel when he’s not expecting it, you might get more’n you bargained for.” She looks at the hand holding the mug with some confusion, before realisation dawns on her face.</p><p>“Ah, sh-” Carter looks quickly at the sleeping baby in her arms and softens her language. “Shucks. Sorry, Jack. I need to get used to the fact that there are other caffeine addicts living here now.” She proffers the mug, face apologetic, but he waves her off; if his heart’s beating a little faster at her casual mention of his living there - well now, that’s his business.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it - like I said, you get a free pass this time. We’re all tired, a little confused, and desperately grabbing for the nearest caffeinated beverage.” He stands and lays a hand on her shoulder. She smiles at him and the slow spread of it across her face is like the sun rising over the Colorado mountains.</p><p>Then Georgie hiccoughs herself awake with a start, which thankfully stops Jack from writing anymore piss-poor poetry in his head, and shakes him back to the reality of their situation.</p><p>“So, Sam,” he says as she adjusts the baby in her arms. “I think it might be time for you to learn how to change a diaper.”</p><p>The look on Sam’s face says she isn’t jazzed about the idea. The smell coming from Georgie says she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter.</p><p>
  <strong>*Days 3-7*</strong>
</p><p>Sam is a fast learner; this isn’t something Jack needed reminding of. He’d started a tally in his field notebook of the number of times she’d saved their asses with her methodical approach to problems, and the sheer wealth of knowledge stored in that big brain of hers. He’d run out of pages before he’d run out of steam. Sam applies this same determination and sharp intelligence to child-rearing. </p><p>She’s not a natural with kids, but honestly so few people are in Jack’s opinion; parenting is terrifying from the get-go, and it kind of never stops. He and Teal’c are, realistically, the only two with any real parenting experience in this rag-tag group, and babies are a distant memory for both soldiers. Daniel reads aloud to Georgie from great tomes like she understands anything at all at this stage, but she seems soothed enough by his voice that Jack learns not to question it. Sam likes to talk to the kid while she’s working through theoretical problems on her laptop, getting the odd gurgle or spit bubble for her trouble. She sometimes looks a little bit lost when she’s holding her; most parents have several months to get used to the idea of raising a child, and he thinks Sam feels a little cheated out of her revision time.</p><p>Sam’s tenacious though; after that first soiled diaper she’s changing Georgie like a pro, and she gets better at juggling baby and bottle over the next few days. They play her classical music while she’s in her crib; she whines when they put on Beethoven, and falls asleep almost instantly at the first notes of any Mozart composition. Daniel digs out Holst and Liszt, while Jack mutters darkly about classism. </p><p>“I cannot <em> wait </em> till she’s old enough to enjoy Johnny Cash,” Jack says to nobody in particular, leaning against the doorframe and watching his daughter sleep soundly to a backing track of classical music and distant conversation. “You touch <em> one </em>rock,” he says, softer, and hears the sound of Sam’s muffled laughter from behind him. She appears next to him in the doorway before he can turn around, and when he looks at her she’s staring at Georgie with a look he suspects mirrors his own. Helplessness, fear, adoration.</p><p>“Pretty cute rock,” she says, and Jack nods, not trusting himself to speak through the sudden tightness in his throat and chest. He’d known, deep down, that this would be hard, but he’d been wrong about which parts.</p><p>And so the first week of off-base parenthood passes like this. Daniel is convinced to take a proper bedroom, because Jack’s going to smother him with a baby blanket if he complains <em> one more time </em> about the crick in his neck; Sam is caught red-handed researching the cost of a house extension; <em> Jack </em>is caught red-handed putting his own house up for sale; Jack’s telescope somehow mysteriously ends up at Sam’s place, without anyone having seen it arrive.</p><p>On the eighth day Jack’s in the kitchen cobbling together something that would, if you looked at it in the dark with half-closed eyes, be considered lunch; Sam walks in, a crying Georgie in her arms, and Jack immediately abandons the jar of pickled onions.</p><p>“Hey, what’s up tyke?” he asks Georgie seriously, brushing the wispy hair out of her eyes and peering at her slightly-snotty face. “You giving your mother a hard time? Because you know that’s <em> my </em> job. And I’m <em> really </em> good at it.” He waggles his eyebrows at Sam, who manages a huff of laughter and a watery smile before her face crumples and--</p><p>“Whoa hey now,” Jack soothes, deftly taking a still-grizzling Georgie out of his sobbing Second in Command’s arms and pulling Sam into a hug with his free arm. She goes willingly, sinking into him and burying her face in his shoulder; this isn’t the first time he’s thought about how well they fit together, but it’s the first time he’s thought it with Georgie nestled between them. If anything, it’s an even better fit. He rubs Sam’s back, shushing and rocking both his girls (something he calls them only in the safety of his own head) until the sadness fades from both of them and Georgie is lulled back to sleep.</p><p>“Sorry,” Sam says quietly, muffled and thick against the damp fabric of his t-shirt. “I was talking to Georgie about mom and dad and I realised how much I missed them.” She pulls herself away slightly, scrubbing with muted anger at the tear tracks on her cheeks. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I just know dad would’ve loved her. Weird rock baby thing aside.”</p><p>“Hey,” Jack chides, “that’s <em> our </em> weird rock baby you’re talking about there. As it turns out, I’m a big fan.” Sam laughs, and it’s not so hollow as before. “Anyway, we’re all kind of feeling our way, and this might damn well be the weirdest situation we’ve ever gotten into, but I reckon we’re doing okay. She’s still alive, isn’t she?” They both look down at Georgie, who’s very much alive if the gentle inflation and deflation of her most recent snot bubble is anything to go by.</p><p>“Yep, seems that way,” Sam says with a wry smile.</p><p>“Then I’d say we’re doing great. She’s gonna have a mom and a dad, and several <em> extremely </em>weird uncles, and SG-1 is gonna raise the best rock-egg alien baby the world has ever seen.”</p><p>“She’s the <em> only </em>rock-egg alien baby the world has ever seen,” Sam counters, and Jack rolls his eyes but they’re both smiling, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to kiss Sam then. Her face is wet from crying, their kid’s a little squashed between them, and someone probably has baby food or worse on them somewhere, but when she kisses him back he can’t think of anything else.</p><p>It’s slow, considered, and thorough - and, sadly, incredibly PG given the presence of Baby Carter-O’Neill nestled between them. It’s not their first kiss, but this is their first without influence, duress, or life-threatening situations at their backs. And when it’s over, it doesn’t feel like an ending at all.</p><p>Sam smiles at him, after, then looks at their daughter.</p><p>“Go team,” she whispers. Jack concurs.</p><hr/><p>It goes like this.</p><p>Jack and Sam accidentally make a baby from a rock on an alien planet, and it turns out not to be the disaster of the century. She’s still just a baby while her parents and their team work out a strategy to make this workable, to fix the chain of command that makes her so taboo. She’s learning to walk, chubby fists curled around her dad’s fingers, when Daniel bursts through the door to deliver the news they’ve all been waiting for.</p><p>“Hammond raised hell in Washington, made a speech about your dedication to the cause, yada yada-” He waves a careless hand around in the air, out of breath but putting his need for oxygen on the blackburner. “Sam’s been given a post with Area 51, working as a liaison for the Stargate Programme in R&amp;D, and Jack - they’re giving you Washington or retirement.”</p><p>Georgie, caught up in Daniel’s excitement, screeches and laughs, which Jack is hard-pressed not to mimic. He looks up and meets Sam’s eyes, and knows immediately what needs to be done. He scoops up a still giggling Georgie in his arms and smiles wryly as she squirms and pulls at the collar of his shirt.</p><p>“Washington seems a bit far, don’tcha think?”</p><p>Georgie grows up learning about the stars and planets, sitting on her dad’s knee under the dark, comforting canvas of the sky and pressing eager eyes to a telescope that’s seen this story before; it likes the odds of a happier ending, this time.</p><p>She grows up with a cousin in Cassie, aunts and uncles on all sides, some related to her but most of them not. She doesn’t know the difference, and Sam and Jack don’t care to tell her. She grows up with a decorated General she has wrapped around her little finger; the first time she calls him ‘Grandpa’, Hammond looks delighted, and tells everyone who’ll listen that he’s got three grandchildren, not two.</p><p>She’s a flower girl at her parents’ wedding, the focus of everyone present in her floral dress and army boots. Cassie, the Maid of Honour, holds her hand down the aisle.</p><p>(“I didn’t even know they came in that size,” Janet says breathlessly.</p><p>“She picked them herself,” Sam admits. “It’s been my favourite parenting moment so far. Jack denies it, but he cried just a little.” Teal’c inclines his head.</p><p>“I was there, Doctor Fraiser. Tears were indeed shed. I myself felt many emotions.”)</p><p>Georgie’s four years old when she and Cassie bully Sam and Jack into getting a dog. Mango is a staffordshire bull terrier whose head is bigger than Georgie’s torso, but he’s softer than butter in the sun; from the day they rescue him, he becomes Georgie’s best friend and protector, curling up with her on the sofa in the evenings and following her from room to room with big, adoring eyes.</p><p>“Y’know, Cassie might’ve had a point about this whole dog thing,” Jack says consideringly, looking softly over at where their daughter is reading to Mango, her head pillowed on his stomach. She has Sam’s blonde hair, and Jack’s brown eyes, and he sometimes can’t breathe when he looks at her.</p><p>“Yeah well, Cassie also said we should have another magical alien rock baby,” Sam says fondly, sliding a hand around Jack’s waist and resting her head on his shoulder. “As if that’s something you can accidentally do twice.” Jack puts his arm around Sam’s shoulders; they’re silent for a moment, staring at the ordinary evidence of a life they’ve built around an extraordinary circumstance. </p><p>“There are <em> other </em> ways, y’know Carter,” he says eventually. “More fun ways. Usually they don’t even involve rocks at all.”</p><p>Jacob Carter-O’Neill is born a month after Georgie’s fifth birthday. He has bright blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes.</p><hr/><p>It goes like this.</p><p>Georgie grows up thoughtful, kind, and sharp as a tack. She loves the stars, and math, and stories about her Grandpa Jacob. She loves tales of Uncle Teal’c’s life as a warrior, told in his soothing bass tones, and Uncle Daniel’s stories about living on the desert planet Abydos; they tell her about their adventures, and she knows they’re missing out the really cool, gruesome parts, but that just means she has something to look forward to later. She loves her little brother and Mango equally, and her cousin Cassie is the coolest person she’s ever met. They’re alike, Georgie thinks, she and Cassie.</p><p>(“<em>I’m </em> not an alien rock baby,” Cassie says indignantly. “I’m just an alien. I was a baby once, but that was a <em> long </em> time ago.”</p><p>“Yeah but didn’t you have mind powers or something once?” Georgie asks, one hand in Cassie’s while the other clutches a dangerously teetering ice cream cone.</p><p>“Psh, yeah. But who doesn’t have mind powers as a kid, right?” Cassie says, winking.)</p><p>Georgie knows where she’s from, and she knows that makes her special. She came from nothing, from nowhere, simply because two people who needed her - and each other - were ready and willing to love her, even though they didn’t know it yet.</p><hr/><p>It goes like this.</p><p>Georgie grows up feeling loved. She grows up feeling wanted. She grows up human.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I had about half of this on my hard drive from earlier in the year, and I just finished it in a day, without editing, so I could get it up somewhere. I've had an influx of very kind comments asking for more content from the first (very short) story - so here it is! I just found out this weekend I'm going to be an auntie, so I wrote this with a very full heart. I really hope you enjoyed it.</p><p>(Also my brain just went "what Pokemon is this?" when thinking about the alien rock egg baby, so clearly I need to stop substituting caffeine for sleep, like our boy Daniel.)</p><p>(ALSO also, I keep coming back to this and slyly editing bits so it reads better. There was an unfinished sentence when I first posted this, so I'm now going through it with a magnifying glass to check for errors. There are many. Oh lawd.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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